Who I am?

I am a stay at home mom. That used to mean more when the house was full of little children. I feel like nowadays I am just at home. My children have grown and I look around and think, “now what?”

I am obviously not looking for a computer job or as I write-nothing that requires really good spelling skills. I wonder if I hand out a resume that shows once upon a time I used be quite accomplished or one that is blank for the last twenty years?

I wrote that who I follow affects how I act and the choices I make. Jesus determines my choices. But as I look through job openings, I wonder if who I follow affects my future?

The Israelites 

We open Exodus to the sufferings of the Israelites and God hearing their cries. God told Abraham 400 years earlier that the Israelites would be in this position in Genesis 15. God also told Abraham, He would bring them out of there with riches. If you know the story or have seen the movie, you know God uses Moses to accomplish this. God appears to Moses in Exodus 3 and lays out the future of Israel for him. God has seen their afflictions and knows their sufferings. He has come down to deliver them and bring them into a land of abundance. God promises He will do all the work to release the Israelites and even have their captors give them gold and silver when they leave. Moses goes to the Israelites with his brother Aaron to speak God’s words to them and show them signs from God. Exodus 4 ends with “the people believed” and “bowed their heads and worshipped.”

Afterwards, Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and ask that the Israelites be allowed to go to the wilderness and worship God. Anyone who has watched the movie knows, Pharaoh said no. It’s not just that he says no but the flair with which he says it. “No and I’m going to demand that they gather their own straw and still make the same number of bricks”. Life just went from Bad to Worse.

So what do you do when you know God has a plan for your future but  your surroundings don’t reflect it? 

This isn’t how Israel planned for their future to begin. Work was already hard for them now it got impossibly hard. They had believed God’s words, bowed and worshipped Him but when life got harder they pleaded to Pharaoh for help. They identified themselves as Pharaoh’s slaves and not the only true God’s children. They blame Moses and Aaron for giving them a horrid life.

Their eyes only saw their immediate surroundings.

Israel and me. Now verse Future.

Their focus was how to make life easier now, not what God had planned for them in the future. I can’t throw rocks at them because I too get caught seeing myself in what is happening right now. I know Eph. 2:10 by heart; I am “created in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand that I should walk in them.” The way I see my life puts God and me  at odds. I can be overwhelmed by my present while He is orchestrating my future. Has anyone besides me noticed “good works that God prepared for me” doesn’t really come up in job descriptions?

God’s Mercy.

God doesn’t abandon us when we lose focus of whose we are. He teaches us.  As God is revealing what plague is coming, He says over and over the purpose of the plagues are so they will know He is The Lord. As the plagues continue, He protects the Israelites and afflicts the Egyptians. He is showing them He is their God and they are His children. God at the same time was revealing to the Egyptians there is no other God but Him. God lets them decide whose they are.

Lastly, He tells them to slaughter a non blemished lamb or goat and put the blood around the door posts. I’ve never picked this verse up before. Verse 13 in chapter 12 of Exodus says the blood on the door post is a sign for them-the Israelites. God already knows those who are His. He knows His children. He has them put the blood on the door post so that they will change their identity from Pharaoh’s slaves to God’s children. Whose the Israelites were didn’t change but who they identified with did change.

My identity too is from God.

Stay at home mom was never my identity. It’s what I was doing or am doing right now. Just like the Israelites were never Pharaoh’s slaves. They were always God’s children. It’s just that for 400 hundred years they were working for Pharaoh toward a big paycheck at the end. God prepared their future beforehand also. He knew what they were going to do to walk in them. They needed to learn to see themselves as His. They needed to look to Him and trust Him and His words-NOT their surroundings or circumstances.

So do I. I am a child of God; Loved, called to Him, saved through Jesus. He knows my future. I just need to remember whose I am.